Hello everyone! Ramadan has started for the muslim people and of course in the UAE. For the ones who are not familiar with the celebration it is a month of fasting for the muslim people. They fast from sunrise to sunset from eating and drinking apart form other things. The reason for doing this, is to feel how the people who can't have certain luxuries in life feel like. It is a very important months for the muslim world and here you can experience it even more. During the day all the places that sell food or drinks are closed and if they are not closed you are not allowed to sit down there and eat or drink anything. In companies, there are certain places you can can go to eat and drink and hotels also provide places for the tourists. My local coffee shop, although it does not provide for a place to sit and enjoy your coffee there, it does allow for you to take it "to go" and enjoy it in your own privacy. So, daytime is very slow and when you go out it seems like everybody is gone. Come nighttime though, and it all changes! There are people everywhere at night. The stores that sell food and drinks are open and full. There are light decorations everywhere! All of a sudden there are so many people outside that finding a place to sit and drink something, is almost impossible! That happens after the breaking of the fast called Iftar. Iftar happens at sunset and families get together to eat and drink. Here, there are tents set up almost everywhere that provide free food for everyone during Iftar. Kostas and me decided to go and have our Iftar at a traditional Arabic restaurant that is famous for their mandi. Mandi is a rice with lamb and there are many ways of preparing the lamb. We had ours cooked in banana leaves and the picture does not do justice to the food. It was delicious! Soft and succulent! The spices were very little so the lamb taste was there not hidden. Truly amazing. The restaurant itself was very simple. There were rooms where you could sit on the floor and eat and there were tables as well for the non Arabic people. I figured that the food there is eaten by hand because when I asked for a fork and knife they brought me a plastic spoon and that's the only thing they had. I ate with the spoon and it was ok since the lamb was so tender that there was really no need for a knife. That was the first Iftar we had. We hope you enjoy the pictures and if you can find a middle eastern restaurant where you are and they are doing Iftar try to go. Really worth it! As always Kali Oreksi!Kostas, Dia and Tony

Greek cuisine has a long tradition and its flavors change with the season and its geography. Greek cookery, historically a forerunner of Western cuisine, spread its culinary influence - via ancient Rome - throughout Europe and beyond. It has influences from the different people's cuisine the Greeks have interacted with over the centuries, as evidenced by several types of sweets and cooked foods.

It was Archestratos in 320 B.C. who wrote the first cookbook in history. Greece has a culinary tradition of some 4,000 years.Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality and was founded on the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, olive oil, and wine, with meat being rarely eaten and fish being more common. This trend in Greek diet continued in Roman and Ottoman times and changed only fairly recently when technological progress has made meat more available. Wine and olive oil have always been a central part of it and the spread of grapes and olive trees in the Mediterranean and further afield is correlated with Greek colonization.